The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1887-09-07

him. And now they stood face to face
and Clement Jenifer saw that this-he
knew not what to call it--bore the face
which he himself had borne twenty
years ago, and he knew-though how
he could not tell--that he was standing
face to face with his own dead past.
Then ensued nversation-strange
nnatural-between these two, who
still were one; but whether the words
were uttered on the evening air or
whether the knowledge of what was in
the mind of each was mutual to both
it were hard to say.
"Why do l haunt your" said this
double of himself, gazing on him with
reproachful eyes. Do not murdered
victims haunt their slayers, and have
not you murdered that which was the
best part of me? Where are the prom
ises of your young days? Where are
the aspirations, the desire after higher
life, the noble purpose with which my
soul was filled? Dead-dead and buried
beneath crust of selfishness!"
Youthful follies," answered Jeni-
fer; "gone the way of all such fancies.
Why do you prosecute me? Have
stolen, or murdered, or lived uncleanly?
Have not kept to my work and done
it thoroughly, distasteful as it is?'
/" 1t is true" said the other, the
commandments you have not broken !;
but where are the hearts you have
helped to bind up? How many have
you helped by your example? Rather,
have you not, by daily carelessness, by
dryness of spirit, by perfunctory per-
Torrance of your duty quenched the
light that was, aye, God knows, it was
in me? And in doing so you have
wounded many another. There are
sinners who Stay the body but you
have slain your own soul; and woe be
to him of whom this can be said"
Jenifer laughed in scorn.
" When | was what you are all this
would have had its terrors for me; now
l am not to be frightened with false
fire. l know what you are, who think
to scare me thus-an illusion of the
brain, disturbance in the nervous sys-
tenn. Come daylight and this will be
as if it had never been"
But the other, with sad and youthful
eyes, looked at him in sorrow, and said {:
" Even in your blindness you speak
the truth; for when you were as l am,
ere the world had dimmed your sight,
you would have seen the precipice on
which you stand. Oh, brother of me !
though now degraded, give up your
dreams of selfish future, turn back
while yet you may; use the wealth
that has come to you not for yourself
only but for others. Redeem the time
that is left to you and bring to hap
| pier second life the promises, the aspi-
rations of your youth"
" Begone!" said Jenifer. |" If not
an illusion, then you are an accomplice
in some conspiracy to betray me into a
rash vow. Did you and the old man
who is in his grave plan it between you
and laugh to think how you would scare
your foolish dupe? Away from me,
and do not hope to work your will.
have inherited and l will enjoy!"
Nay" then said his double, see to
what an end your enjoyment shall bring
you. l, whom you have destroyed, am
what you were; see now what you
shall be-"
Then for one awful moment the par
son knew that not only he himself stood
there, with the spirit of his once pure
and earnest-hearted youth beside him,
but third and dreadful shape-himself
as he should be, if no hand of grace
stayed his downward course. The light
ming flash of awakened perception
showed him his own old age, where
that which he had called economy had
grown to avarice, where callousness
had become cruelty; discomfort, envy;
carelessness, impiety. He saw himself
degraded, mean, despicable, bad, with
out affections, without tenderness,
without hope, and as the horror of it
swept over him with resstless force
Clement Jenifer-the icy crust of years
of life for self broken at last-fell upon
his face, with the agonizing cry of the
apostle of old, "Who shall deliver me
from the body of this DEATH"
When he came to himself he was in
the quaint old sitting-room in his new
home. The fire had burned low and
only dimly illumined the room, but as
he gazed into the glowing embers a
hitherto unkindled log broke into flame,
and as it leaped and flickered the scroll
which he had before remarked and
failed to decipher caught and threw
back the yellow light, and Mr.. Jenifer
read, in letters of gold, the poets
words:
:" Nor deem the irrevocable past
As wholly wasted, wholly vain,
If, rising on its wrecks at last
To something nobler attain"